Grieks Restaurant Athene — Restaurant in Amsterdam

I don't write many reviews but this was hands down the worst restaurant experience I've ever had. I went to this place twice. The first was last year, and under covid restrictions there were only a few people in the restaurant: the food was not bad, although nothing to write home about, and the service was alright too. I went again recently and waited 45 min for a waiter to come by. When we could finally place our order, I asked about allergens (whether there were nuts). The waiter barely spoke any English or Dutch and I couldn't communicate with him, no matter how I phrased things he didn't understand. A bit awkward but okay, I assumed he must just be new. After a bit he went to get his colleague and we had the same problem again. They then got the manager who told me (with a big fake smile) that "in 30 years working in restaurants I've never heard of a food allergy". Surprising given I was there the previous year with the same allergies! Anyway by this point we decided it wasn't worth the trouble and tried to leave. They made us pay for the house wine they'd finally brought out after an hour (in glasses dripping with water) even though we hadn't touched it. Really the least professional service I've ever...

IF the owner had told us when we booked that he had a birthday party in that night of around 30 people - Yea, we might not have come. As it is I will never go back again because apart from him not having the decency to inform us that we would be unable to hear each other for most of the evening, let alone have a conversation. When it was actually quiet enough to talk - they were having )long, interminable, boring birthday speeches. During one of which we were 'shushed'! My dinner companions stopped me from saying anything. The food is not cheap and it's varied - One of the vegetarian dishes was lots of fried stuff and therefore delicious - but it was more or less the same as the (vegetarian mixed mezes) starter we had ordered. The other was a fairly tasteless and boring sort of stew - give it a miss. There were only two of them working which resulted in pretty shoddy service and the food was not presented well. I had a mixed grill, couldn't work out what most of it was. They were really good about swapping the chicken breast, for a meatball as it turned out, which was the only identifiable meat on the plate. The head waiter is gropey, touchy, feely. Was also not allowed to say...

I would have given one star but some of the severs were lovely. These folks just want to make money whilst putting out mediocre food. When we arrived it wasn’t busy (whilst next door was buzzing) so that could have been the first tell tell sign. We asked for a baby chair .. it came and it was dirty we asked for it to be cleaned again which they agreed to without a fuss but in the end we had to clean it again ourselves... they sprayed it and the blue detergent was dripping off which wasn’t nice for our baby to sit on. I asked for a starter with no yoghurt but that’s exactly what I got. Our main meal came ... my partner ordered a big meat ball with rice but got it with chips they brought out the rice pretty much at the end of our meal... anyway my partners meatball was undercooked so we mentioned it to the sever who mentioned it to the boss/owner. The server apologized again. When we went to pay they said it yes the meat is very big which is why it happened but charged us the same price..: crazy to think we could have gotten food poisoning he he not spotted the uncooked meat in time and they were so nonchalant about it. PLEASE DO...